Moon over the Hood

Only Temporary

2008-09-20T15:00:00.002-05:00

I am going to make a new blog just for some creative websites I belong to. So if you come here expecting all my creativity to be flowing out of your computer screen, sadly, I am going to disappoint you.

I have blogs and journals all over the Interwebz and all of them are dying slow, neglected deaths. But when I get a new one for my artsy-fartsy side, I will post it here.

My, my, what a tangled web we weave when first we ... well, we don't do anything.

I am the world's worst blogger, but I enjoy reading other blogs, esp artists' blogs because they have such purdy pictures and great ideas!

More Images to Share

2007-04-02T16:19:00.000-05:00

This time, it's an Easter-themed set of images to use for personal projects. Remember, respect the copyright and angel policy (all on the site, in very easy-to-understand language).

If you're like me and don't celebrate Easter -- OK, so I celebrate the *original* Easter, aka Ostara -- the images still can be used in vintage/spring works.

http://www.tentwostudios.com/countdown/

St. Patrick's Day Freebies

2007-03-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

Can be found on Lisa Vollrath's amazingly fun website at the following link:

http://countdown.tentwostudios.com/

Be sure to follow the angel policy/copyright rules and spread the love!

Oh Well...

2005-07-09T18:06:00.000-05:00

I tried to install the java script for a pagan search engine but blogger doesn't like it very much.

So if you want to check out the glossary for the training programs at Witchschool.com, well, go there. :-)

OK, here's a real link: here. The "Search the Dictionary" function is right in the middle of the screen.

Enjoy.

Google Image Fun, and Picasa sucks

2005-06-12T12:08:00.000-05:00

Below are my entries in the Google Image game spreading around blogdom. See below the pics for an explanation, but you simply take certain words and go searching on Google Images for a pic that comes up. You either take the first, or your favorite. Both have interesting results. Mine are -- in reverse order, see rant below: Place you grew up, place you live now, your name, your grandmother's name (boy, am I glad SHE wasn't named Janet!), and favorite food, drink, song and smell. Upload, and wait for the comments to roll in!

Now, I am cursed with having the picture posts look like this because of the lame program with the even lamer name that came with this blog: Hello by Picasa. It's icon is a half-daisy on a blue field, and together with the name, you would think it was meant to provoke happy thoughts. HAH! It refused to see even HALF the images in my file I had stored for this, even though they were valid JPEGs, as that seems to be all that will load. I re-saved a few -- from jpeg to jpeg, mind you, and the stupid program seemed to get the hint. They load as though they are separate posts, as opposed to one long one. And I just don't like the silly name because it doesn't make me all that happy!

PS on the cheese: I ripped the cheese image from here. Take a look. Gotta go. There's apparently a marching band coming down the street. OK, a church marching band. Things you miss when you live in the suburbs... which is also here -- although it's actually the 10th whitest. Our neighbor to the west holds the top spot, but that may actually bother people there.

2005-06-12T12:06:00.000-05:00

Favorite Smell: Sandalwood. This is a fan carved out of it. It's fast becoming an endangered species in its native India, so I don't know how long I can keep admitting publicly that I still indulge...
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T12:05:00.000-05:00

Favorite Song: OK, this one is going to take some 'splainin' -- My favorite song of all time is Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes." But my favorite song right now is NIN's "Hand that Feeds." So I plugged in "bite the hand" and found this, which is an appropriate sentiment regardless, as the RIAA sucks. They can't produce or market successfully, so they go whining to the Feds. Pussies. (My cats take offense to the use of that term, so I retract it. Dumb asses. I don't own any donkeys.)
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

Favorite Drink: As most people who know me can attest, I will drink cheap wine but I must have expensive beer.
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

Favorite Food: Behold! The Power of Marketing! or, Why I Can't Be Vegan.
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T11:52:00.000-05:00

My grandmother's name was Florence. This is the Florence in Italy and very fitting to remember her by.
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T11:47:00.000-05:00

Yes, my name is Janet, Ms. Vandenabeele if you're nasty -- making you try to pronounce "Vandenabeele" is your punishment, see?
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

Wow, if only Detroit actually looked like this. But hey, the old gal takes a nice pic now and then. My neighborhood is, um, nothing like this. I live now in the northeast corner of Southwest Detroit, which is to say, exactly nowhere.
For the Google Image Game

2005-06-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

This is the Maryland Lottery office in the community (a suburb of DC) where I spent most of my growing years. Not much else there except bedroom communities, office buildings and a Beltway exit.
For the Google Image Game

It was a Connectivity Malfunction!

2005-06-06T22:44:00.000-05:00

Wow -- TWO comments about the Google Image craze I mentioned in my last entry, and neither one of them from people who live in my house!

Anyway, I will upload the images soon. My excuses are 1) Crappy dial-up connection requiring long upload times and 2) last week of my latest class and 3 papers due! Class is tomorrow (Tues) so I'll be free to upload away when I get home, though after watching The Shield, since it's an episode I missed during the Great Cable Blackout of Aught-Five.

One little hint: Since my first name is Janet, I'm betting you can just guess what the first image hit I got was!!

Peace.

Blogging trends, good and bad

2005-06-01T23:03:00.000-05:00

First, a rant about the bad. I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but now you can hit the "Next Blog" button in the upper right hand corner and chances are pretty good that within a few clicks, you'll hit on a spam blog. There may be a real term for it; "spam blog" is just what came to mind. These are so-called blogs that look like they have real text written by some afficianado of something or another, only to click the link and hit a link of (generally craptastic) commercial sites. Some of them aren't even real sites, either, or have nothing to do with the subject.

I'm not going to provide any links because it's not mere commercialism, but sheer crap.

The first one I hit was a site having to deal with hunting and teddy bears. So there were links to gun products and Care Bears. I was intrigued what kind of bleeding heart conservative was writing this blog (or maybe it was Ted Nugent after a few beers? Who can say.) Maybe it was just a fetish. Well...I was totally wrong and more than a bit disappointed. I never actually found real content or even a place to buy anything other than e-books guaranteeing my First Million By Yesterday! Sheesh. Spam blogs...a higher order of annoyance.

Whodda thunk?

Now for the good, or at least, stupid fun. This blog here suggests the following game, again, I suppose a higher order pursuit made possible by the Internet.

First, go to Google Images here.

Then, do a search for the following:

The name of the place where you grew up
The name of the place where you live now
Your name
Your Grandmother's name
Your favorite food...drink...song...and smell

Then, post either the first or your favorite view. Make copious apologies for any potential copyright violations and blather on about fair use. Hah!

So I'm going off now to do just this. Looks like fun.

New blog, and a joke

2005-05-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

Guess I'm not the most persistent blogger out there. I have many excuses, none of them good.

However, I have started a new blog and hopefully I'll remember to add posts whenever I hear something that pertains to the issue, which happens to be the First Amendment from a pagan point of view.

It's called "First for a Reason" and feel free to check it out and add comments!!

the link is...

http://manybeliefs.blogspot.com

And now for the joke:

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its condition is improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are illusional spin from the liberal media. Illuminating rooms is hard work. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effort. Why do you hate freedom?

Getting Started with Tarot

2005-01-23T17:27:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of true blogging, making new connections is everything. Showing off and getting book contracts is secondary, I swear. This post is adapted from a reply sent this afternoon to some kind soul who actually stumbled upon this very humble blog. Thank you and I hope this is of at least some assistance to anyone interested in Tarot -- which, I should add, is not merely a pagan pursuit. When I worked briefly as a professional reader, most of the folks I worked with were Christians or of no particular religion, including one Mormon lay minister...not sure of her exact title, but you get the point -- and that's that nothing usually is as it seems. Enjoy!

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
My first advice to anyone interested in Tarot would be to find a deck you love. Something based on the traditional Tarot 78-card system is nice, but frankly worthless if you don't connect with the images. I collect decks, some of them I could never ever use, but boy, are they gorgeous! Some I can use only for myself and even then, I'm referring back to the book for more guidance.

Some people like "oracle decks" that aren't Tarot based. Some have angels, some goddesses, etc... I have a Goddess deck I love, but again, only for myself -- although it's meant to be a "women's spirituality" deck vs. a pagan one, so I don't see why I couldn't, just never did. I use one that merges the traditional Rider-Waite imagery in a more pagan context, the wonderful Robin Wood Tarot.

There are some thorny issues you have to get through for both reading for yourself and, if you choose, for others, namely, the Scary Cards, especially Death and The Devil. Some decks rename them; others reinterpret them. My deck does the latter, with Death meaning Rebirth and The Devil meaning things that keep you chained to the material realm, such as addictions or avarice. Movie Tarot -- usually of the campy faux-Gypsy type -- has scared people into thinking that drawing the Death card means you or someone close to you is going to die. But my teachers and personal experience have really given that duty to other cards, and to psychic intuition, and it's widely accepted that the Major Arcana Death card is really about Rebirth or other transformations (though that also belongs to Judgement...but that's another entry altogether!).

So it really helps to get a good look at many decks and multiple cards within each deck. Give any prospective deck a good audition, I say.

If you want to read reviews and look at lots of images, there are several huge sites, but the one I use the most is Aeclectic Tarot. Find a deck you feel suits you and if at all possible, get one that has an accompanying book -- a real book, that is. Virtually all decks come with a little white booklet, sometimes just folded paper, but that's not enough. A good deck and book set will help you understand the system/mindset behind the deck and to me, that's the key.

The best source online for buying decks is also the largest distributor, U.S. Games. Amazon.com online and Borders real world also sell many decks. Borders stores usually have samples on notebook rings and Amazon *might* have images for some titles, depending on whether the publisher has uploaded them. There's also places like eBay, and pagan and metaphysical stores, online and storefront.

Once you find a deck you like, you may want to make a connection with it. Sleep with it under your pillow for 3 nights, for example. Carry it in your purse or backpack and look at it often. Shuffle it, learn how it feels, how it sounds...my deck is pretty sturdy so I do the traditional riffle shuffle with mine, because I am blessed with Man Hands and can shuffle a deck larger than regular playing cards, LOL. Lots of people like to make special pouches or wraps to hold their decks, with black silk being seen as highly protective. I wrap mine in an old colorful red scarf, and keep it in a green faux velvet box with some kind of black synthetic satin lining. To me, the color combo is very powerful, and my mother gave me the box. If you ever met my mother, you'd know that no one could ever get anything by her and for me, that's protection enough. But then again, I'm a Cancer and family connections trump all. Pun intended. ;-)

Most people start out trying to memorize keywords for each card, but that's not always a good way to start. If you have a good memory and enjoy the challenge, then by all means. But if not, there's no shame in referring back to the book. I would practice some simple layouts, whether they are "real" readings or not. Three card layouts are most common, easy to learn and yet *very* helpful. I used them as a professional reader a lot. Now, you will eventually need to find some way to memorize meanings, but this is what takes time so don't get discouraged.

An excellent and most comprehensive place to learn Tarot is, appropriately enough, www.learntarot.com. This is the site of author Joan Bunning's course that is now a book. I started reading it before she printed the book and it was a huge help. You can download the entire course to your computer to work on or even print out. But if you're going to print it, I would recommend just buying the book -- it's worth every penny. It goes through each card, layouts and many other issues. This is an excellent place to start learning meanings in a larger context; it was the first time I'd ever heard of The Fool's Journey -- the explanation of the order of the Major Arcana. It's something I continue to learn from every day.

Somewhere between doing mock readings and memorizing the card meanings is where you'll get that "AHA!" moment and things will start to gel.

Also, there's the very important issue of "Tarot readings" vs. "Psychic readings." You may or may not find yourself getting "psychic" insights from the cards, esp. when dealing with others. Don't worry about it. The Tarot is informative and insightful enough to nail situations on the head even without being able to "Predict The Future™." Plus, I believe that the Universe/Goddess/God/Great Spirit/Angels/Whatever you may call Deity is looking out for us and so the cards that we need to see come to us. Ditto for when you read for others.

Indeed, I always let my clients shuffle the deck however they saw fit, to put a bit of their energy into it, and while doing so, asked them to think about the situation on their minds. Some readers don't let others touch their decks, and that's certainly a personal preference. I prefer that connection, and the only people I wouldn't want touching my deck are people I wouldn't want touching me.

In summary, two things to remember: Just Do It, and keep on doing it. Til you die, as you will continue to learn from even the same deck even if you use it every day for 50 years.

In future posts, I'll address other topics, such as the psychological/Jungian underpinnings and what decks I like and what decks are cool -- although this isn't going to become merely a Tarot blog.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Red state, blue balled

2004-12-21T11:18:00.000-05:00

So much for "family values." So much for smug conservative Christian uprightness. So much for the lead-in, the snide "I told you sos" can now begin...

What follows is a very long column from today's Washington Post that continues the process of enlightening us about the whole, unnerving but frighteningly true divide between the "Red States" and the "Blue States." No, not the obviously funny linking of "red" with the conservatives ... I hope you've had enough sniggers over that one already (bad Evil Media, bad!). This is a look into the naughty habits of the so-called conservative bedrock of our quickly dividing nation. In 200 years, when students in the various balkanized states left on this continent study the history of this big rock, they'll have to memorize Dubbya's name and accomplishments as the figurehead of the beginning of the end of our Union.

Oh Goddess, that's so depressing. Let's get back to the porn...

Anyway, even if you just skim the first third of the column, you'll figure out that the hullabaloo about values is a crock. Yet, there are deep divides cracking us to bits. What are they if not sex?

Well, look at some of the telling quotes about who these supposed bedrock folks (where are Fred and Barney when you need them? At the Water Buffalo lodge, watching "Barbie Blows Bedrock"!) think are the downfall of American Civilization:

Hollywood.

So while they're buying up porno DVDs off the Internet in between typing in their credit cards as fast as they can to join even MORE sites to view naked Asian teens, these folks think "Hollywood" is bad.

So what is it about TV shows and movies that are so much worse for us than Forrest Hump?

I'm thinking...Jews. Blacks. Women. Jews. Latinos, except for Jennifer Lopez because she's rich and hot and lightens her hair and she's hot. Some more blacks and Jews. Hell, look at UPN. I bet it's not THAT big in Utah!

Yeah, I'm thinking now that whenever I hear a rightwinger rant on about values, what he is really spouting is code for "Keep America White." Red plus white equals pink, just like your little ...

Oh well. At least we all have one thing in common: Money is still green.

GOP Corporate Donors Cash In on Smut

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2004; 6:24 AM

Since the election, the e-mails from readers have poured into my
mailbox. The common theme from conservatives has been that Nov. 2 was
a triumph of values -- embodied by the GOP heartland over the heathens
of the coastal elite.

Typical of the comments was this one from Arizona: "I do think the
Democrat Party is identified -- justifiably -- with much of the
vulgarization so prominently displayed by many celebrities,
particularly those in the entertainment industry. Hey, we pick our
friends."

In this case, the Democrats Party's "friends" are the
expletive-spewing Whoopi Goldberg and her Hollywood pals, whom
conservatives demonize. But Republicans have their friends, too. While
not as obvious as the Goldbergs of the world, this corporate elite
also profits from the peddling of lowbrow entertainment and, in some
cases, outright smut.

In fact, just as the Democratic and Republic elites both profit from
creating and selling popular entertainment, red states and blue states
don't differ much in their consumption of it.

In my recent Yahoo Political Players interview with Tucker Carlson,
the conservative writer and CNN Crossfire co-host asserted that the
red/blue divide is rooted in the dismay many Americans perceive in the
vast social and cultural changes happening in the country and the fact
that the masses of people in middle America blame a distant, coastal
elite for fostering those changes.

"The people who run the Republican Party are elites just like any
other elite, and they don't share the same cultural concerns as the
center of the country," said Carlson. "They don't -- they're all
pro-choice on abortion, they're all pro-gay rights, they're all thrice
married, you know what I mean? And they summer in the Hamptons, too.
And so they don't have anything in common, that's true, with
evangelicals who make up the bulk of their party."

In this world of irony, corporate leaders at companies as diverse as
News Corp., Marriott International and Time Warner can profit by
selling red state consumers the very material that red state culture
is supposed to despise. Those elites then funnel the proceeds to the
GOP, which in turn has used the money to successfully convince red
state voters that the other political party is solely responsible for
the decline of the civilization.

Community Values
There was never any doubt how the good people of Utah County, Utah,
would vote on Nov. 2. It has long prided itself as a bastion of
conservatism and family values. And so when voters were given the
opportunity to choose between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry,
86 percent of them went for Bush, making Utah County the second most
Republican county in the most Republican state in the country. Utah
County has a population of roughly 370,000. Its largest employer is
the Mormon-run Brigham Young University.

But Utah County is also the home of a mid-1990s court case that
demonstrated some of the ambiguity about "values," even in the reddest
of the red states. Randy Spencer was the attorney that the court
appointed to defend a the Movie Buff video store in American Fork from
local prosecutors who had charged the store's owner with 15 counts of
pornography for renting tapes such as "Jugsy," "Young Buns II" and
"Sex Secrets of High-Priced Call Girls." The prosecutors claimed the
store was violating the community standards of suburban Provo.

Spencer, who describes himself as a devout Mormon, challenged the
prosecution's definition of the community's values by subpoenaing
records that showed Utah County tolerated the consumption of porn in
several outlets: Utah County cable subscribers had ordered at least
20,000 explicit movies in the past two years; the Sun Coast Video
store in the town of Orem was deriving 20 percent of its rental sales
from adult movies, even though adult movies only made up 2 percent of
the store's inventory; Dirty Jo Punsters in nearby Spanish Fork was
racking up on average $111,000 dollars per year selling sex toys, blow
up dolls and other adult fare; the Provo Marriott across the street
from the courthouse sold 3,448 adult pay-per-view movie rentals in
1998 alone.

"I was assigned to the case, and it was a real evolution for me," said
Spencer in an interview last week. "The same religious values that I
have are protected by the same Constitution that protects my
neighbor's rights to do some things that I might not necessarily do."

About a year after the Utah case, a similar scenario played out in
Hamilton County, Ohio, a conservative Cincinnati suburb. In 2001,
under pressure from an influential local antiporn group, Citizens for
Community Values, prosecutors filed obscenity charges against two
local video stores for selling adult videos. The Cincinnati Enquirer
launched an investigation of community standards and found that:

"Last year, more than 21,000 Hamilton County residents purchased
26,000 explicit videos from one of the nation's largest mail-order
companies. A company spokeswoman described those sales as typical for
a community of this size. . . . In January of this year, 182,000
Greater Cincinnati residents -- an estimated 70,000 from Hamilton
County -- visited an adult Web site at least once. Nielsen -
NetRatings found that 21.8 percent of all residents here who went
online visited an adult site. The national average for January was
21.4 percent. In recent months, Hamilton County residents bought adult
movies on pay-per-view TV at about the same rate as viewers did in
other mid-sized TV markets. The numbers suggest county residents are
quiet contributors to the adult industry's rapid growth. And with
every purchase, they change Hamilton County's long-held notion of a
community standard."

Again, the community standard in Hamilton County -- which favored Bush
over Kerry 53-47 percent -- was pretty much what it was everywhere
else. In this particular case, one of the video storeowners pleaded
guilty and paid a small fine. The other decided to fight and was
acquitted in a jury trial.

Adult entertainment is not the only area in which cultural tastes seem
to be consistent across the country. Primetime viewing habits are very
similar too.

Desperate Housewives, the hottest new show on television, features
plotlines such as one in which a married woman is having an affair
with her 17-year-old gardener and another in which a man murders his
neighbor. Turns out, the show performed better in the November sweeps
month in the red state markets of Dallas-Fort Worth (first), Atlanta
(first) and Kansas City (second) than it did in the Blue state markets
of New York (fourth), Chicago (fourth) and Boston (third), according
to Nielson Media Research. The show did quite well in red state
markets Salt Lake City (fourth) and Birmingham (sixth) as well.

While my e-mailer from Arizona focused his "values" argument on
vulgarization of culture, post-election polls by the Pew Charitable
Trusts and a new survey released this week by NBC News and the Wall
Street Journal have shed some light on that lightening-rod question in
the National Election Pool exit poll. The "values" difference between
Republicans and Democrats is more about abortion and gay marriage than
it is about "Ren & Stempy" or "Will & Grace."

But if the red states are more moral than the blue states in other
ways, it's difficult to make that point quantitatively. In many of the
social pathologies, the blue states are in better shape than the red
ones. There are different ways of interpreting data, but a basic
analysis of census data makes this point.

For instance, the average percentage of births to unwed mothers is
slightly higher in red states than blue states. Washingtonpost.com
producer Kevin Hechtkopf did some number crunching and found that the
average number of births in unwed mothers was 33.2 per 100 in red
states compared to 31.2 in blue states.

And if divorce is an indicator of family values, the red states lose
out there as well. As blogger Andrew Sullivan pointed out recently,
the states with the highest rates of divorce per capita are all red
states, and the states with the lowest rates of divorce are blue
states.

Some will argue that none of these facts are evidence of hypocrisy,
that it's entirely possible that the liberal minority in red states is
responsible for the consumption of all the cultural trash and the
perpetrators of social pathology in those red states. Mathematically
possible? Yes. Probable? No.

Follow the Money
Spencer, the Mormon defense attorney in Utah County, said he couldn't
help but be struck by a larger point: Big corporate America -- a
staunch GOP ally -- was lining its pockets selling raunch to the
masses, including the red state nation.

"A lot of it's coming from Republicans," Spencer said, referring to
the corporate culprits who profit from smut. Spencer said he considers
himself a Republican.

It's almost impossible to get a handle on how much money corporate
America is reaping by peddling smut. General Motors Corp. is not eager
to brag about how many dirty movies it sold last year through a
subsidiary.

In the Utah County trial, Spencer asked the jury why a lone, small
business vendor like Peterman should be held to a higher standard than
the likes of W. Mitt Romney. At the time Romney was on the board of
Marriott International, which was making huge margins on piping porn
into hotel rooms. Currently, Romney is the Republican governor of
Massachusetts and his travels around the country have helped fuel
speculation that he might run for president in 2008.

Perhaps the most extensive mainstream media treatment on this subject
ran four years ago in The New York Times. In a 4,000-word
investigative opus, writer Timothy Egan connected the dots between
porn and big corporate profits:

"The General Motors Corporation, the world's largest company, now
sells more graphic sex films every year than does Larry Flynt, owner
of the Hustler empire. The 8.7 million Americans who subscribe to
DirecTV, a General Motors subsidiary, buy nearly $200 million a year
in pay-per-view sex films from satellite, according to estimates
provided by distributors of the films, estimates the company did not
dispute.

"EchoStar Communications Corporation, the No. 2 satellite provider,
whose chief financial backers include Mr. Murdoch, makes more money
selling graphic adult films through its satellite subsidiary than
Playboy, the oldest and best-known company in the sex business, does
with its magazine, cable and Internet businesses combined, according
to public and private revenue accounts by the companies.

"AT&T Corporation, the nation's biggest communications company, offers
a hard-core sex channel called the Hot Network to subscribers to its
broadband cable service. It also owns a company that sells sex videos
to nearly a million hotel rooms. Nearly one in five of AT&'s broadband
cable customers pay an average of $10 a film to see what the
distributor calls 'real, live all-American sex -- not simulated by
actors.'"

Egan's story is a bit dated -- corporate sell-offs and restructuring
have changed ownership of some of the companies on which he reported
-- but there's no evidence of a seismic shift in the adult
entertainment industry during the intervening years.

For instance, Ruport Murdoch, the controlling owner of News Corp. --
which owns both the conservative Fox News and the popular and
frequently salacious Fox TV -- continues to cash in. On one hand, Fox
News employs commentators who promote the connection between
Republicans and family values while other divisions of the company
profit from sexually explicit content.

In fact, Murdoch's Fox TV network is fighting a record-setting FCC
indecency fine for an episode of the now-canceled "Married by America"
(which featured whipped-cream-covered strippers at a bachelor party
and digitally obscured nudity) by arguing that the government should
not even be in the business of regulating decency on the public
airwaves.

"Indeed, the massive expansion of cable and satellite video
programming, together with the advent of the Internet, renders
obsolete the second-class treatment of broadcasters under the First
Amendment," the Fox FCC filing reads. "These technological and
marketplace changes make clear that regulation of indecency, which the
commission itself recognizes is constitutionally protected speech,
cannot possibly survive strict scrutiny review."

Last year, Murdoch won controlling interest in DirectTV from GM.

Of course pornography isn't the primary source of income for News
Corp. or any of the other companies mentioned here. But it is a
growing source. Multichannel News, an industry wag, wrote in June that
adult entertainment revenue on cable had grown from $263 million in
1998 to $609 million in 2002, the latest year for which figures were
available. Other articles on MSN, Insight on the News and Beliefnet
provide more information on the industry's growth.

No one argues that the vast sums of money that flow into the
Republican Party are based primarily on the self-interest of
protecting the ability to profit from that sort of material. But money
made off of pornography is finding its way into the Republican Party
via very wealthy donors.

The lodging and tourism industry -- like most major industries, with a
few exceptions such as entertainment and law -- has given a majority
of its money to the GOP since 1990. . Other than a few exceptions such
as Hyatt Corp, most of the large hotel chains give predominantly to
Republicans.

Since 2000, Murdoch and family members (all executives or shareholders
of the News Corp., Rupert's parent company) have contributed at least
$100,000 of their personal money to the Republican Party, its
candidates and right-leaning political action committees, according to
the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.

(To be fair, the News Corp. has given only a little more than half of
its $61,000 in corporate contributions to Republicans since 2000.)

Executives and officials at EchoStar have given prodigiously as well,
but the company has spread its money around between the parties, with
a heavy focus on contributions to congressional regulators of its
industry.

Since 1994, General Motors Corp. has given all of its $53,850 in
political contributions to the Republican Party.

This figure does not include the millions more spent by GM affiliates
and subsidiaries since the early 1990s, including Hughes Electronics
(the former parent of DirecTV), which has given 61 percent of its
$878,259 contributed since 1990 to the GOP and its candidates. (See
also: Automotive industry's top contributors to federal candidates and
parties)

AT&T, which sold its broadband cable system to Comcast a couple years
after the Egan story ran in The New York Times, has given 54 percent
of its $19,672,908 to Republicans. AT&T continues to own Liberty
Media, which is the principle owner of On Command, a Denver-based
company that is one of the two largest providers of pay-per-view
movies to hotel chains.

In Vanity Fair's annual list of top 50 "new establishment" information
age titans, the magazine sought to determine which of the presidential
candidates each person on the list supported. Of those that could be
determined, the field was split almost evenly between Bush and Kerry.
After the list was published, Viacom's Sumner Redstone, who had been
listed as a Kerry supported, announced he was supporting Bush. Viacom
owns MTV.

Redstone was listed as the third most powerful information age titan,
right behind Murdoch. Of the top 10 titans, four were primarily in the
business of media. And with Redstone's announcement, three of those
four -- Murdoch, Redstone and Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts
-- were all Bush supporters. Barry Diller was the Kerry guy.

Another high-ranking media mogul was Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons.
Time Warner, of course, has vast holdings in cable television,
publications, online and music mediums. Parsons, a former assistant to
New York governor and U.S. vice president Nelson D. Rockefeller,
contributed a total of $2,000 to Bush in 2000 and 2004 and none to Al
Gore or John Kerry.

Marriage of Convenience
I vividly recall one of Bush's most popular stump speech lines from
the 2000 election: "My job will be to usher in the responsibility era,
a culture that will stand in stark contrast to the last few decades,
which has clearly said to America: If it feels good, do it. And if
you've got a problem, blame somebody else."

But this strategy conveniently exempts the corporate elite from those
high standards of responsibility.

In his buzzed-about book, "What's the Matter With Kansas," the liberal
writer Thomas Frank hypothesizes that today's winning GOP majority is
the culmination of a marriage of convenience between the GOP's
economic elite and social conservatives. The economic elite needs the
votes of the social conservatives to win elections. And the economic
elite needs to win elections to pursue the tax cuts and deregulation
they seek.

Frank believes that the economic conservatives convince the masses to
vote against their economic interests by creating an angry and
permanent cult of victimization that diverts attention from the elites
and pins all of the country's problems on the eponymous liberal
bogeyman. Even as the GOP continues to consolidate and hoard its
economic and political power, the Washington-based leadership and
strategists of the GOP mask its lack of progress in the culture war --
even as it accomplishes its goals of tax cuts and deregulation -- by
convincing the masses to rise up against their true oppressors, Sean
Penn, Harvard and the New York Times editorial page.

In the end, the Rupert Murdochs of the world could not exist without
the Utah Counties of the world. His political party needs their
voters. His businesses need their patronage.

While the debate over abortion and gay rights remains as relevant as
ever, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the larger
"cultural" values debate is as over-hyped as most of Don King's
fights.

Popular culture isn't popular because members of the "tax-hiking,
government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New
York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving left-wing freak
show" (to borrow a line from a campaign ad this year) are the only
customers. It's because there is an unquenched thirst for it, and the
corporate profiteers (who are members of and contributors to both
political parties) see a nationwide market for it.

Jeffrey J. Douglas, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based criminal defense
attorney and chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, an adult
entertainment advocacy and watchdog group, summed it up: "Any time you
can find a way to market sexual entertainment, rest assured that the
largest entities will make sure they can make money off of it and make
sure they have deniability."

Conservative syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams said most
conservative voters understand this but have rewarded the GOP with
their votes because of the sincere religiosity of President Bush and
his ability to reassure them that he shares their concerns about the
culture.

"I don't draw much of a distinction between corporate America and
Hollywood," Williams said. "It's not only Hollywood that produces this
filth, but corporate America too. They exploit it to take advantage of
it to make money off of it."

While Democrats will never be able to reach certain voters because of
issues such as abortion and gay rights, it cannot abdicate the values
debate, many party leaders argue. The political divide is narrow
enough that Democrats can win by peeling off a small percentage of
values voters by casting its own priorities in terms of morality and
by sending a message that they empathize with those concerned about
the vulgarization of the culture.

"You're not going to convince the hardcore to turn around, and you
shouldn't even try because you would compromise your own values," said
Al From of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. "You've got to
talk about giving something back. We did that in '92 with national
service. Clinton got criticized in 1996 for small bore ideas like the
V chip and school uniforms. But he made it clear that he was concerned
with how hard it is to raise kids today."

Clinton won a dozen states in his 1996 re-election that went to Bush this year.

© 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

So easy...

2004-12-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

... to fall behind again. It's holiday season, my neck hurts and I signed up for several swaps that I'm having trouble finishing. Well, not so much trouble finishing as trouble affording the postage. sigh.

Oh well. I will have time aplenty in less than two weeks, as I won't be working after Dec. 23. I know I need to move on, as I didn't spend 10 years in and out of college just to babysit, no matter how cute the little booger is. I plan to search for slightly more meaningful work -- I can settle for "pays the rent and utilities" kind of work. I despise the thought of going the office route, but I'm thinking the phrase "employment agency" is in my future.

Hopefully, I can sneak in a few days here and there of only slightly bridled creativity. I've re-instituted my craft table, much to the delight of my two youngest cats, Possum and Spike, who delight in knocking things off of it. But I've joined the deco movement, which is really just paper arts gone mobile.

That officially constitutes a post. Shutting down now.

Back on Track

2004-12-09T13:06:00.000-05:00

OK, after two more horrible months, I decided to just get over my bad self and get back to blogging. Since there's no more election to moan over, just the pain of four more years of Shrubbery, I decided to pick on kids' programs today instead.

So here you have it, Alaja's Guide to Hood-winking Small Children and Getting Their Parents to Buy Carefully Marketed Tie-Ins:

After four months of babysitting a toddler, I am now an expert on children's television, at least what's on Nick Jr. and Noggin. Disney's channels I don't care about and Cartoon Network is for Adults, period. Here's my foolproof guide to helping your rugmonkey through those transitional times between drooling infancy and full-fledged humanity:

1. Blue's Clues: Blue, a mumbling puppy with a high IQ but destined for years of speech path pullouts in school, helps an array of cute but dorky boys figure out just what she's trying to say. OK, it's got absolutely nothing for adults except the whole "Who's hotter, Steve or Joe" factor, but at least kids learn a little bit about deductive reasoning. And drawing with crayons. As for Steve vs. Joe, for my money, Joe's hotter and scores higher on the "If I could have a One Night Stand with an Obscenely Younger Man" meter. But Steve -- who left the show to pursue a career as a punk rocker -- is dorkier, more neurotic and edgy, so he's much more like the kind of guy we all end up with. Actually, the show is OK. I swear. I'm not fond of the more recent "Blue's Room" puppet segments, where Blue can talk, despite the obvious Pagan imagery of a traveling moon fairy and the emphasis on snack time. Oh well, guess they had to mess with a good thing.

2. Miffy: Claymation based on the artwork of some Dutch guy who doesn't appear to be able to draw any better than me. But Miffy is really nice. Barbara Bear is nice. Boris Bear is nice. Grunty is nice. All the adults are nice. The stories are nice. The coloring and scenery are nice. After a half hour of Miffy, I just want to go out and hammer railroad spikes into puppies' heads. Miffy does seem to act like extra-strength Ritalin for hyperactivity, so as a controlled substance, it's not completely bad. But as a kids show you're forced to watch, it's dangerous.

3. Lazytown: Only Icelanders could meld computers, high camp and excessive preachiness with such psychotic glee to produce such a mediocre show. Apparently, kids are lazy and need to eat more fruit. That's the message that gets pounded into viewers' heads from some adult guys with heavy accents, a cute American girl with awesome pink hair who'd get kicked out of any American school, and some puppets, two of whom look suspiciously like Bjork. My favorite is Trixie, who already has sociopathic tendencies and is destined for years of sexual identity crises. Already has a secret crush on Bjork. The Hero, Sportacus (campy, eh?? Think the kiddies will get it??), is played by some world aerobic champion with an incredibly hot bod. THIS is what muscles are supposed to look like, guys. The music is Broadway-gone-pop and will force you to run from the room, thereby accomplishing the show's goal of getting you and your brats off your fat asses.

4. Dora the Explorer: In an age where parents are too scared to let their kids outside, or if they do, let them leave the yard, seven year old Dora gets to travel all over the place, from Mayan pyramids to mountains to the rainforest to the library, with no one but a red-booted monkey to accompany her. In fact, she usually has to travel through the rainforest just to get to the library. I want to live where Dora lives. Dora is cool. She teaches you Spanish. She has a talking Map, a magic Backpack that holds more than any $4000 storage unit from Ikea, and can talk to trains. After Dora, my favorite character is Swiper the Fox, who steals stuff and tosses it into trees, where kids are forced to learn counting and shape recognition to retrieve them. Now THAT'S my idea of a lesson plan. Do not say anything bad about Dora or you'll suffer the same fate as the puppies.

5. Little Bill: It's cute and nice, but not in the homicide-inducing style of Miffy. The toddler I babysit likes it. It's based on the day to day events in the life of a five year old boy. It's by Bill Cosby, so I can't say anything bad about it, even though I really want to. I just leave the room or bury my brain in a book, so I guess it could be called educational.

6. Rugrats: Rugrats was the sleeper hit of the 90s. Nickelodeon, in the same display of corporate idiocy as evidenced with Ren and Stimpy (one of the high watermarks of Western Civilization), had no clue that the first run episodes of the early 90s were being heavily watched by twentysomethings who found the subversive humor comforting, like Pop Rocks in tapioca pudding. They liked Tommy, the Hero with a Screwdriver in his Diapie, and Angelica, the Deliciously Evil Brat who Did Everything We Wished We Could Do but Got her Comeuppance Anyway. Somewhere in the mid-90s, somebody realized that the show was being watched a lot, and assumed it was by kids. So they commissioned new episodes, a new baby who manages to get conceived and birthed without the existing characters aging a bit, and a lot more niceness than before. As you might have discerned by now, I have issues with corporate niceness. Still, you can find bits of genius in the latter episodes -- the hits on Yuppie parenting, childcare instruction manuals, pop culture -- that made the early episodes so magical. The tweenie version, All Grown Up, has flashes of brilliance, too. All in all, a worthy view, unlike the other shows produced by the same production team, Klasky-Czupo, The Wild Thornberrys and some dumb skate punk show that's so completely unwatchable I refuse to learn its name.

7. Fairly Oddparents: Probably not good for toddlers, but not offensive enough for them to notice. My guilty pleasure. My reward for making it through the day. Dweeby little boy with criminally negligent but likeable parents and a psychopathic babysitter gets through life with the assistance of two Fairy Godparents, the dumb femmie Cosmo and his mostly competent wife, Wanda. Together, the trio assaults pop culture like Bjork assaults fashion. Blatantly states that it's made entirely in the United States by artists who might actually get the jokes; creator Butch Hartman worked for Hanna Barbera. Jay Leno and Adam West have guest starred. Rock On, Timmy Turner!!

8. Jimmy Neutron: 3D CGI about a boy genius and his idiot friends. Some pop culture acknowledgement and battle between the sexes humor. Another set of clueless parents that miss the mark more than hit it. Too advanced for toddlers and too mindless for adults. I guess there's a market somewhere in between, but I don't care.

9. Backyardigans: Another 3D entry from Nick executive boardrooms. The stories are geared totally for kids and therefore, largely uninteresting. It's very colorful and the animations are superb, however. What sets this show apart are the fantastically talented kid vocal actors with awesome singing voices. The music is nicked straight from Broadway (for good and for bad), and for some reason, many of the tunes are keyed in the baritone range. Even with three generations of kids raised on hormone-laced milk and beef, pre-teen boys still aren't generally gifted with baritone voices, so I wonder what the music directors are thinking. Still, when the songs are played in the screechy range, the singing is awesome and will make you feel totally inadequate, even in the shower or on boozed-up karaoke. Did I mention the stories are stupid? Probably wouldn't hold an adult's attention beyond the first three minutes, even the Pirate and Viking episodes. The Tarzan show boggles the PC mind, however, esp. since the characters -- with names like Tyrone, Pablo and Uniqua -- are supposed to represent children of color and the old Tarzan movies, well, let's just say they weren't very culturally aware. But the children of color thing works for me, esp. since their colors are pink, purple, orange, blue and yellow. Diversity works, because it is so pretty and shiny.

10. Franklin: Really nice show about animal characters learning Western values. Falls somewhere between Miffy and Little Bill on the puke-o-meter. Try to schedule the day so that if the youngun wants to watch this, it's while you're making lunch safely out of earshot in the kitchen.

11. Miss Spider: About the best you can expect from nice and value-laden television. At least it's bright and shiny and 3D, and based on a series of books that everyone but me knows about. Hell, I even saw a "Miss Spider" teapot the other day. Miss Spider is voiced by the nice chick from Sex and the City, but at least "nice" in that universe is tolerable and slightly trampy. However, this kids' show has absolutely no titillation factor whatsoever, so they might as well have cast an unknown. Miss Spider collects children like I collect cats, but apparently does so without AFDC. That's values for you! Realism rules, as she's about three times the size of her folk-singing, guitar-strumming wussy husband. The resident bad guy, Spiderus, is Angelica with eight legs and a scary English basso voice. He's pretty cool. All in all, bugs are cool, too. "Be nice to bugs. All bugs," is the show's message, so it's probably some subversive Buddhist propaganda ploy. I can live with that.

12. Connie the Cow: This is nice, English-style. The coloring job is psychodelic and even stimulates my brain. If only this were Amsterdam, I would watch this show in cafes. Get it? Silly stories, but with British accents, much more tolerable than others in the Nice genre.

13. Oobi: Mindless, or mad plot to rule the world? I haven't figured it out, nor do I get the narcotic attraction of some hands with googly eyes on them speaking in language that would have offended Tonto. That's it. That's the High Concept of this show. I am in the wrong line of work.

14. Other shows: There are other 2D, colorful shows out there in various degrees of niceness. I would review them, but they all blur into one giant lump of saccharine that should be banned by the FDA.

It's almost pathetic...

2004-09-20T12:17:00.000-05:00

Lots of people, especially pagans and those of wanna-be shamanistic bent, want to be wolves. But apparently, I am one.

Check it out. Then leave me the f*ck alone, 'kay??

What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

ps: I might be a moody loner who only seeks out the company of the pack so we can rip out the throats of the innocent, but AT LEAST I CAN BLOODY SPELL!

Yeah, but do they BLOG???

2004-09-02T19:52:00.000-05:00

Could space signal be alien contact?
Thu Sep 2, 7:09 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - An unexplained radio signal from deep space could -- just might be -- contact from an alien civilisation, New Scientist magazine has reported.
Reuters Photo

The signal, coming from a point between the Pisces and Aries constellations, has been picked up three times by a telescope in Puerto Rico. [note: I am guessing on that being Arecibo. But hey, it's a cool thing nevertheless.]

New Scientist said on Thursday the signal could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon or even be a by-product from the telescope itself.

But the mystery beam has excited astronomers across the world.

"If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to get exciting," Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath told the magazine.

It was broadcast on the main frequency at which the universe's most common element, hydrogen, absorbs and emits energy, and which astronomers say is the most likely means by which aliens would advertise their presence.

The potentially extraterrestrial signals were picked up through the SETIathome project, which uses programmes running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through the huge amount of data picked up by the telescope.

My Amygdala Remains in Angst

2004-09-02T19:44:00.000-05:00

A few months old, but an interesting read from the Boston Globe:

The campaign in the brain

May 2, 2004

MANY A POLITICIAN has wanted to get inside the voter's head; now brain research at the University of California in Los Angeles promises the closest of looks.

But as meticulously as scientists are able to track a brain's responses to political stimuli while monitoring volunteers reclining in an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine, it's not likely that anything can predict what a person will do inside a voting booth or why --and we hope it never does.

Even Democratic political consultant Tom Freedman -- who is funding the brain research with his brother, Joshua, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and fellow political consultant William Knapp -- said that he hopes politics always maintains some of its mystery.

Still, that's not stopping him from trying to crack the code.

Brain mapping in politics, the subject of a recent New York Times report, follows the lead of Madison Avenue, where "neuromarketing" is the wild frontier and has researchers staring at MRI data to determine which cars or soft drinks light up the consumer brain -- and move the hand to the wallet.

In the UCLA experiments, which are not yet complete, the researchers have found that Democrats register more angst than Republicans in the amygdala -- the area of the brain responding to danger -- when shown a George Bush ad featuring 9/11 images and when shown the old Lyndon Johnson anti-Goldwater "Daisy" ad featuring a flower erupting into a nuclear explosion.

But what does it mean? That Democrats are more fearful of attack? That they hate force, think LBJ blew it, or worry that Bush will garner votes on the threat of terrorism?

The early UCLA data have also indicated that both Democrats and Republicans respond emotionally in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when shown photos of their party's candidate -- but respond to the opposition in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or rational, thinking area.

Does that mean their brains are receptive to a logical argument from the other side? If so, that's one more reason the mudslingers should drop the dirt and focus on clearly delineated issues and ideas.

But voting is often illogical, based on gut reactions, first impressions, or last-minute switches that blow up the polling statistics and focus group predictions. And trying to figure out that convoluted bag of responses could drive a research team into therapy.

A healthy democracy thrives on the balancing of the visceral and the cerebral and depends on the heart, mind, soul, and experience of the individual voter, who -- while dissected endlessly -- will mostly likely remain blessedly complex and unquantifiable.

The House of the Spirits

2004-08-30T19:21:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading this amazing book today. I'm only like 20+ years too late. I do admit I tried to read it before, but I can't figure out for the life of me why I never got into it. Not that I mind the wait; it certainly is a timeless novel and it comes to me at a time in life when I can appreciate it on so many levels.

First, the book is quite a chameleon. As an epic, that's a good thing. It has all the "Grand Sweep" of much less worthy material printed under that banner, but changes gradually as the world it describes changes. There aren't real jarring changes between generations as there are in many epic novels.

What truly amazes me is that this was a first novel. Isabel Allende manages to nail two of the most difficult novel classes in her first try: the aforementioned epic and the difficult and often anachronistic narrative. Some writers get stuck in narrative mode and forget the story at hand. Or they don't realize that what they have to say, and how they say it, isn't all that interesting. Narrative is quite tricky, and perhaps that's why the film got less than enthusiastic reviews. Too bad. I still want to see it now, if only to compare how I see the story with how someone else did.

Then, of course, there is the politics. The Candidate can only be Salvador Allende, the author's uncle. He is shown as such a shadow -- as ethereal as the spirits in the house of Esteban and Clara -- that I am very drawn to learning more about him. Allende portrays him in a way that's unbearably, but pleasurably, teasing. He is the untenable middle, the unattainable dream of a politician, and as much as you are drawn to the character of Conservative politico Esteban Trueba, The Candidate causes pain and sadness to even a reader who would agree 100 percent with his politics.

On her website, Isabel Allende says she hardly had to embellish her characters at all, basing them on the people in her family. Wow. Never think that the dysfunctional family is a newfangled invention.

In this world of frenetic interconnectivity, here's a site where Isabel Allende's fans congregate. I'll list more if I come across good ones.

I do plan to check out more of her writing.

"...and the DUTCH!"

2004-08-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

This is the direct result of legal hallucinogenic drugs. As in, not enough.

(explanation of the header here)

Another donkey

2004-08-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

Here's another donkey:

A New Donkey

We'll see.

Here's an SAT question for ya:

2004-08-26T18:44:00.000-05:00

If two planes leave Moscow from the same gate and then crash within 10 minutes of each other, what time will the liquidation of Chechnya take place?

The 10 Million Day War

2004-08-26T17:53:00.000-05:00

"I thought Vietnam was over a few years ago, but apparently not," said Bruce Iverson, 58, an Air Force veteran of the war, who drives a bus in Portland, Me. -- from today's New York Times.

Two very disturbing articles in today's NYT, both related to the latest fiasco from that Uberfiasco known as the Bush campaign. Both about the divisive campaign to sully John Kerry's war record and make it seem like it's not a Republican Party financed effort.

If you haven't been keeping up with this, here's the short of it: A so-called veterans group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say that John Kerry's Vietnam War record is crap, that he lied about being fired on so he could get a Bronze Star so that he could someday run for President as a Democrat after the previous Democrat president took so much crap for not serving in the war. However, the chief Crap Slinger, who himself earned a Bronze Star for actions that same day as Kerry, says there was no gunfire. Trouble is, Slinger No. 1's own medal citation says there was. HE says that KERRY must've written it, and that the EVIL, OMNIPOTENT KERRY must've written every single document about that event because -- according to the AP and other media, not necessarily bleeding heart liberal ones -- they all recount a firefight. So do the survivors who AREN'T members of this organization. Just when Bush thought he'd scraped the flak off his shoe, it turns out that his national counsel (that's a high-priced political hack lawyer to the rest of us) was also advising this group of vets but he SWEARS the two jobs weren't connected.

My fat white ass.

Said lawyer has now fallen upon his sword, though I haven't heard if he ever served in the military, so I don't know if he has a sword. Maybe a golf club. Or the stylus of his PDA.

Trouble is, this whole incident shows not only the sliminess of the Bush campaign (and of campaigning these days in general), but how far the GOP is willing to go to besmirch Kerry's war record because of its perceived need to keep veterans in its camp. So basically, it's willing to ignore campaign law and do anything it can to kiss veteran ass.

Veterans on both sides of the political barbed wire are upset. Who can blame them? They are being courted with about as much finesse as johns along Eight Mile Road (insert your local skanky prostitution zone here).

Kerry bears a bit of the blame here, however. He has done a whole lot to showcase his wartime service, knowing that the right wing's besmirching of Clinton lost a lot of support. Or at least they say that's how the support got lost. Do people vote for someone just because he's the member of the same fraternity, i.e., Vietnam vet?

And why was Clinton's lack of service so heinous? Doesn't anyone remember Dan Quayle's illustrious military career parking jeeps in the Indiana National Guard or some such lifethreatening job? OK, that was mean. I didn't mean to make you remember Dan Quayle.

But Dubbya managed a similar cushy gig as Mr. Potatoeheade, and no one is calling him a coward, but then again, Quayle never botched a big-time invasion, either. Why is it that a cushy gig is morally superior to standing your ground and avoiding service altogether? At least that was one thing Clinton wasn't hypocritcal about. Much.

2004-08-17T23:28:00.000-05:00

Strangely lit, but this shows Possum's markings.
Posted by Hello

2004-08-17T23:26:00.000-05:00

Hey, stop that! I'm busy here!
Posted by Hello

Bottoms Up!

2004-08-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

Aside from a slight rash of unknown origin, I seem to have survived the first weekend of the Renaissance Festival. Apparently, attendance was up from last year, but then again, last year's first weekend fell during the Great Blackout of 2003. Still, I was surprised there weren't more people. I guess a lot of folks thought like I did: that the first weekend tends to be really crowded. Not so; apparently, several of the themed weekends and of course the last weekend are the most popular. The pirate weekend -- which also happens to be Labor Day weekend -- is a big draw, thanks to the beer festival.

This coming weekend is the Highland Fling, meaning all Scotland, all the time. Oh joy...I get to hear "Scotland the Brave" seven hundred times! As if customers trying in vain to tell ME what they ought to pay for tickets isn't bad enough, I'll be going daft from repeated aural bludgeonings of the Old Spice commerical theme. Honestly, otherwise I LOVE bagpipe music, although I do prefer Irish pipes myself. If you want to experience my pain, visit this link and replay the song for 9 hours straight.

Though I shouldn't bitch. Men in skirts...what more can I say?

This says it all.

Tomorrow, it's back to the hunt for gainful employment. Verily, I shall get around to exhibiting an opinion sooner or later.

Coming soon

2004-08-14T03:18:00.000-05:00

Hopefully I can get a picture posted of Possum, our latest fur child. She came with the house we moved into last year. No shower, no appliances in the kitchen, no AC and only 1/3 of the windows open, and the electrical system can't even handle a microwave, but HEY! WE GOT ANOTHER CAT in the deal. Such is life in the hood.

Possum is Stray No. 2 we've taken in. Big Old Fat Cat Spooky was Stray No. 1. He came to live with my son Jonathan and I about six years ago before I met my husband, Dave, and we lived in another crappy un-airconditioned house. I'm sensing a connection here...

She weighed about 5 pounds and was as nasty as the animal she's named for when she first showed up. She apparently lived in this house with a previous tenant, but was turned out on the street when that person moved on. I think people here know who it was who did it, and don't want to shame that person; I can understand that. Besides, there were about two dozen strays in our neighborhood just over a year ago, mostly living out of dumpsters. Possum could barely stay upright in a stiff wind one day after I watched her crawl out of our neighbor's trash can. That night, she joined our already large brood. Now, she's fat, dumb and happy, spayed, and entirely indoors (and now also on a food-restricted diet; she's still the smallest of my feline mutants, but also a bit overweight for her tiny frame). But she's inside, safe and no more breeding or getting mauled by the neighborhood's horny toms.

If you're worried that I'm going to give you a lecture on getting your pets spayed and neutered -- YOU'RE RIGHT. It kills me to think that you can, if you look around a bit, find a reputable vet to do the deed for under $30 and yet people won't get it done. I'll post some links to low-cost spay-neuter sites later. I found our connection through Google in about 4 minutes. Spooky got fixed for about $40, Spike for $30 and Possum for $20 -- yeah, I keep getting better at finding deals. Females usually cost a helluva lot more. By comparison, Sisko's neutering 7 years ago cost about $80, but I actually had money back then. So you have no excuses.

If Possum could talk, maybe she'd tell you about all the babies she watched get killed. Yeah, that's a low blow, but some of you out there need it. Neutering Old Sparky is not the same as getting your nuts cut off, OK guys? And female cats aren't necessarily healthier if they've been bred once. You'd make them a lot healthier feeding them decent food without killer preservatives (that's a lecture for another day, students).

OK, off to bed. I think I might finally be tired enough to sleep. I know I won't have this problem tomorrow night.

You're not cool...

2004-08-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

...unless you've seen this. I know, because I wasn't cool until about half an hour ago. If you're consigned to the hell that is dial-up, it'll take about two days to load, but it's worth the wait. Clip your toenails or something.

http://jibjab.com/default.asp

2004-08-13T22:49:00.000-05:00

This was Spike on his first day with us, approximately 4 months old, and sometime in Oct. 2002
Posted by Hello

2004-08-13T22:47:00.000-05:00

Big ears, small brain.
Posted by Hello

2004-08-13T22:42:00.000-05:00

"Don't tell me it's morning...again!" -- Pebbles
Posted by Hello

2004-08-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

Spooky says hello
Posted by Hello

2004-08-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

Sisko and his dark, dark heart
Posted by Hello

In the Beginning

2004-08-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day of the rest of my blog.

Tomorrow I start work at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. If you're heading that way, stop by the ticket sales booth and say hello. Of course, you don't know who I am, so you won't know who you're asking for. But life is like that.

I hope to use this place for spouting off about politics and religion, since our society makes such a stink about them both. We aren't allowed to talk about them in "polite" settings because we have lost the fine art of argument. Arguing...that we got down pat. Making an argument, and agreeing to disagree...that we suck at.

Check out the Renaissance Festival at:

www.michrenfest.com

2004-08-13T19:38:00.000-05:00

Inanna keeps no secrets from Victoria
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